42 



NA TV RE 



\Nov. 19, 1874 



Elie de Beaumont in the course of his long career filled 

 m:iny offices of distinction. As far back as 1827 we find 

 him lecturing for his master at the Ecole des Mines, and 

 afterwards succeeding to the chair. In 1832, on the death 

 of Cuvier, he was chosen to fill the only chair of Natural 

 History at the College dc France. He thus stood at the 

 head of the geological tuition of the country. The 

 mining engineers and others who required geological in- 

 struction for State certificates or appointments passed 

 through his hands. His fame likewise attracted many 

 from a distance, so that as 'a teacher his influence mu'^t 

 be regarded as having been very great. Moreover, ,.1. 

 became Inspector-General of Mines, member and per- 

 petual secretary of the Academy of Sciences, and was an 

 associate of many of the learned societies of Europe and 

 America. His scientific renown and high personal cha- 

 racter led to his being chosen as senator and raised to the 

 rank of Grand-Officier of the Legion^of Honour. Full of 

 honours, therefore, he has closed a long life with his 

 faculties unimpaired to the last, and in the midst of the 

 activity which had marked his long and honourable 

 career. 



This is perhaps hardly the place or the time to pass 

 any judgment on the work of the illustrious man who has 

 just gone from among us. His name will ever be asso- 

 ciated with the history of geology, linked with those of 

 Cuvier, Brongniart, Dufrenoy, and others who led the 

 way to all that has since been achieved in the geology of 

 France. ARCH. Geikie 



FLUCKICER AND H ANBURY'S " PHARMA 

 COGRAPniA" 



Pharmacoi;rapliia : a History of the principal Drinks of 

 Vegetable Origin met with in Great Britain ami British 

 India. By Friedrich A. Fliickiger, Ph.D , Professor in 

 the University of .Strassburg ; and Daniel Ha:ibiuy, 

 F.R.S., Fellow of the Linncan ani Chemical Sociiti^b 

 of London. (Macmillan and Co., 1874.) 



THERE was a stir of anticipation and inquiry amongst 

 pharmacologists when it first became known that 

 Prof. Fliickiger and Mr. Hanbury were engaged upon a 

 work of joint authorship. Speculation was busy as to 

 what was to be the nature of the book, to what particular 

 objects it would be directed, what ex.ent of ground it 

 would cover, and so forth. Upon a single point all were 

 agreed, namely, that it would not be one of those com- 

 posite treatises on drugs - organic and inorganic— thera- 

 peutics, pharmacy, aid toxicology, enlivened by traditional 

 botany and old-fashioned chemistry, which have passed 

 current amongst us as " Manuals of Materia Medica." 



One generation after another of compilers have pro- 

 duced volumes supposed to be suited to the wants of the 

 time, in which the same sort of infurmation has been 

 t'iven, the same errors perpetuated often in almost iden- 

 tical words, until the very teim '"Materia Medica'' has 

 come to be looked upon with suspicion by scientific men. 

 Perhaps the origin of the shortcomings of the general 

 run of such works m.ay be traced to the fact that they 

 have often been written by jjractising physicians who 

 were lecturers in medical schools, and have been designed 

 primarily as handbooks for medical students. Nor need 



it be a matter of wonder that, with no special facilities for 



acquiring original information as to the history of drugs, 

 and with few opportunities for verifying the statements of 

 others, authors so situated were content to transcribe 

 without examination what had been already recorded as 

 fact, and to devote their better energies to the more purely 

 medical relations of the subject— the aspect of chief inte- 

 rest both to themsehcs and those for whom they wrote. 



The question has often been raised, and once at least 

 on very high authoiity, why the overcharged curriculum 

 of medical study should still be encuaibered with Materia 

 Medica ; why, in view of the separation which is gradually 

 taking place between the practice of Medicine and that of 

 Pharmacy and of the scientific education now received by 

 the pharmaceutist, such matters as the |)hysical characters 

 sources, and chemistry of drugs should not be referred to 

 those whom they primarily affect. 



This, perhaps, is scarcely the place to discuss such 

 questions in detail, but they inevitably present themselves 

 on a comparisoa of the present book with any of those to 

 which allusion has just been made. 



It is generally no very difficult thing to give an intelli- 

 gible account of a work embodying the results of scientific 

 researxh. It is not requisite that the knowledge of the 

 reviewer should be co-extensive with that of the author to 

 enable him to form a just estimate of its strong and weak 

 points, or even to exercise the critical faculty where 

 opinions rather than facts are advanced. But the task of 

 introducing suitably a closely printed volume of 700 pages, 

 containing scarcely anything but facts — an unusual pro- 

 portion of which are stated for the first time, and those 

 which are old assuming a new importance from their fresh 

 verification, the whole given with a condensation of style 

 that refuses page-room to a superfluous word — is not one 

 that can be performed by the ordinary me. ho J of sum- 

 marising results. 



The-scope of the '■ Pharmacographia " and the inten- 

 tion of its authors can hardly be better told than by a 

 few extracts from the Preface. After defining the word 

 Pharmacographia as " a writing about drugs," the authors 

 state that " it was their desire not only to write upon the 

 general subject and to utilise the thoughts of others, but 

 that the book which they had decided to produce together 

 should contain observations that no one else has written 

 down. It is in fact a record of personal researches on the 

 principal drugs derived from the vegetable kingdom, 

 together with such results of an important character as 

 have been obtained by the numerous workers on Materia 

 Medica in Europe and America." 



Restricting the field of their inquiry by the exclusion 

 of Pharmacy and Therapeutics, " the authors have been 

 enabled to discuss with fulkr detail many points of 

 interest which are embraced in the special studies of the 

 pharmacist." 



"The drugs included in the work are chiefly those 

 which are commonly kept in store by pharmacists, or are 

 known in the drug and spice market of London. The 

 work likewise contains a comparatively small nunrber 

 which belong to the Pharmacopa;ia of India : the appear- 

 ance of this volume seemed to present a favourable 

 opportunity for giving some more copious notice of the 

 latter than has hitherto been attempted." 



Now as to the manner of treatment. A uniform sub- 



